


Tearing At The Seams

by dreamkiller



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Black Character(s), Character Study, First Kiss, M/M, POV Character of Color, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-29 20:43:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13935021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamkiller/pseuds/dreamkiller
Summary: “So you were his best friend, huh?” The new king asked.W’Kabi had been a protector for a long time, so he knew how to assess a threat. Everything about Killmonger screamed predator: his cat-like swagger, the taunting smirk of his mouth, the way his eyes followed W’Kabi like he was something to eat.





	Tearing At The Seams

**Author's Note:**

> This is set somewhere during the film when it's still believed that (spoiler) T'Challa is dead.
> 
> (Sorry Okoye, your mans ain't shit).

“So you were his best friend, huh?” The new king asked.

W’Kabi had been a protector for a long time, so he knew how to assess a threat. Everything about Killmonger screamed predator: his cat-like swagger, the taunting smirk of his mouth, the way his eyes followed W’Kabi like he was something to eat.

W’Kabi didn’t rise to the bait.

It was just the two of them, in the throne room. Killmonger was sprawled on the throne like it was a desk chair, and W’Kabi stood before him, too many years of service ingrained in him for him to do anything but answer dutifully.  

“T’Challa and I have known each other since we were boys,” W’Kabi answered. “We grew up alongside one another. We studied together, learnt how to fight together, became men side by side.”

It was strange seeing the room so empty. As king, T’Challa had always been surrounded by people: his family, his friends, his councilmembers, his soldiers. W’Kabi knew from being on the inside that these were all ultimately one in the same.

He tried to think back to a time where he’d seen T’Challa alone, but found that he couldn’t summon a single example. Maybe that was the fundamental problem, W’Kabi realised. T’Challa had never known true loneliness. T’Challa had been loved, wholly, his entire life. The golden prince born into the sun.

And then there was Killmonger.

Erik’s eyes narrowed slightly, and W’Kabi could read the thought as clear as day behind his eyes: _in another lifetime, that might have been us._

“And yet you just betrayed him,” Killmonger said. No judgement. Even the dry, mocking tone had vanished from his voice. Instead he simply sounded curious. “Just like that, huh? What, is it a Wakandan rite of passage to betray your brother when they need you most?”

W’Kabi lowered his eyes to hide the furious pounding of his heart. “Every second that Klaue walked free and unpunished was a betrayal to my parents lives.”

Killmonger smirked. Abruptly, he pulled himself to his feet and stalked across the hall to where W’Kabi stood, until there were just inches between them. For a second, W’Kabi thought he might hit him, but instead he just stared.

W’Kabi stood tense. This close, it wasn’t difficult to forget that every inch of Killmonger had been crafted to kill. He was a few inches taller than W’Kabi, and broader across the shoulders. W’Kabi counted at least five weapons on his person that he could see. He didn’t put it past him to have more. Killmonger was a warrior, through and through.

Now, Killmonger looked him up and down, calculatingly.

“He really fucked you up, didn’t he?” He asked wonderingly, and W’Kabi didn’t know who he was referring to, Klaue or T’Challa, but he shrugged.

“I could say the same thing to you” W’Kabi said flatly, and Killmonger laughed. It was a genuine laugh and it was the least full of scorn that W’Kabi had seen of him since he’d arrived. For a second W’Kabi saw it: the flash of what could have been, of what was taken by King T’Chaka’s selfishness and T’Challa’s naivety.

Could they have been friends too, had things been different? Would they have shared their childhoods, as W’Kabi and T’Challa had? Been brothers? Exchanged nudges and knowing glances from the shadow of T’Challa’s light?

Killmonger knocked W’Kabi’s shoulder playfully, and W’Kabi’s eyes tracked the movement.

He looked up again to find Killmonger watching him with a faint smirk, his eyes alight with boyish deviousness. “This is going to be fun” he said.

 

*

 

“Fuck off” was how Killmonger greeted the handful of W’Kabi’s men that were running drills behind them. W’Kabi tried not to bristle when they immediately stopped what they were doing and scurried out of sight, despite W’Kabi’s previous orders, but realised he must have failed when he caught the king watching his distaste with amusement.

Killmonger didn’t say anything, though. He just picked up a nearby sword, twirled it elegantly in his hand.

“Wanna fight?” He asked.

W’Kabi raised an eyebrow at the suggestion. “My King?” He asked unsurely, though the blood was pulsing hard in his veins at the thought. He wanted this. He’d wanted it from the second that Killmonger had thrown justice at his feet with nothing more than a smirk.

 “Cut the formalities,” Killmonger said with a roll of his eyes. “I know you don’t believe that shit anyway. Your face screws up every time you say it.” He paced a little, backwards and forwards, eyes scanning W’Kabi contemplative. “You said you fought with your Panther, right? Trained with him?”

W’Kabi wondered why it was that Killmonger couldn’t say T’Challa’s name, and then he decided that it didn’t matter. T’Challa was dead. They had a new king now. W’Kabi had ensured this happened himself.

He nodded.

Erik tilted his head, challenging. “Come fight me.”

W’Kabi had kept his anger bottled down for so long, bound and chained up in the darkest part of him, that it was easy to let it free now. He knew from the way that T’Challa’s eyes would narrow in his direction occasionally, or how Okoye would tilt her head, watching him searchingly, that he would slip up sometimes. Let his tongue get a little too sharp for a king’s aid, let the fire burning behind his eyes get too bright. Since the very moment his parents were stolen from him, something had fractured deep inside W’Kabi’s chest, and it wasn’t until Erik Killmonger appeared, the embodiment of righteous anger himself, that W’Kabi had finally allowed the bitter shards of his own grief to rupture the surface.

Killmonger’s unapologetic rage fury was the most honest thing that W’Kabi had encountered in years, so it only felt natural, that when Erik tilted his head as if to say _well then?_ that W’Kabi allowed himself to swing at him.

Killmonger evaded every blow expertly, of course. He ducked and dived like it was a game, laughing when W’Kabi’s spear whirled mere millimetres from his face. To him, W’Kabi realised later, it probably was. Wakandans were just playthings pretending at politics while out in the real world people like them were starving and getting gunned down on the street. None of this had meaning. Not the throne, or the herbs, or the panther.

An artful blow of force into W’Kabi’s gut sent W’Kabi sprawling and he grunted, surprised, as his back hit the dirt floor. There were only a few people outside the of the Dora Milaje that could get the best of him with a move like that. T’Challa was one of them. He supposed, in hindsight, the two cousins weren’t so very different.

He blinked, momentarily disorientated, but Erik was on him again before he could scramble to his feet.

“So _angry_ ,” Erik said approvingly. He crawled over W’Kabi until he was trapped under the weight of his body, arms caging him in. “Still pissed huh? I bring you your vengeance, all wrapped up pretty in a bow, and yet you still look like someone peed in your Cheerio’s. What’s it gonna take to make you smile, huh?”

“You’re finally sitting on your father’s throne” W’Kabi countered. He tried to wriggle free but Erik’s weight was unrelenting. “You’re wearing his ring, you’re leading his kingdom, you’re slaying his enemies and yet you’re just as empty as I am. What’s your excuse?”

Erik brought the knife to W’Kabi’s throat, but W’kabi refused to flinch.

“Fuck,” Erik breathed. His thighs bracketed either side of W’Kabi’s waist. The warmth of it made W’Kabi lose his breath. “You’re even more fucked up than I thought.”

All it would have taken one small movement, the tiniest flick of the wrist and it would have been all over for W’Kabi. He would have gone to the next world to meet his parents or onwards to the gods to pay for his sins, and he would have been fine with that. Instead the cold of the metal fell away and Erik crashed his mouth to his, angry and insistent.

It only took W’Kabi a second before he kissed him back. There was nothing soft about it. Erik’s kisses were as frantic and greedy and relentless as W’Kabi had expected, and W’Kabi drank them all in.

 

*

 

Afterwards, the lay on their backs on the warm ground. W’Kabi stared up at the sky. He could hear the distant rumble of the rhino’s and he knew that they should probably get up soon. War was coming, but here they were: half naked, chests heaving with exertion.

The logical part of W’Kabi’s brain, a voice that sounded eerily like Okoye’s, knew that they were violating just about every safety protocol that had been put into place for the last century, not to mention that they were right on the trail back to the village of the border tribe where anybody could stumble upon them. In his heart, however, W’Kabi couldn’t find it in himself to care anymore.

“So you were in love with my cousin, right?” Erik asked, after a long moment of silence.

W’Kabi looked at him sharply, and Erik snorted.

“Thought so,” he said. “Everyone in this fucking country seems to be.”

His chest was bare, and W’Kabi could see the markings on his body. One for every kill, he’d said. W’Kabi wondered what it was like to wear your truth so boldly and unashamedly. He wanted to reach out and trace them. He wondered what Killmonger would do if he had.

“He was a good man” W’Kabi said tiredly, like that made any difference.

Erik scoffed.

“I’m gonna do what he couldn’t” Erik said. “I’m gonna take back what’s ours and free our people.”

W’Kabi understood that need. He’d sworn an oath to protect his country, but he hadn’t even been able to protect those closest to him.

“And you’re gonna do it with me” Erik said decisively. W’Kabi turned his head to look at him, and there it was again: the fire unfurling in his chest.

“This was your plan was it?” W’Kabi said. “Usurp the throne by seducing those closest to him?”

“Nah,” Erik said, eyes dancing with that exact same fire that lit W’Kabi’s. “The throne’s already mine. And so were you, from the second you laid eyes on me.”

W’Kabi wished he could argue with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me @ rooonan.tumblr.com


End file.
